Shouldn't everyone in Montreal be happy with the "infrastructure and condo booms" that are occurring there right now? Hell here in San Diego we are making a big deal out of office vacancy rates dropping, nothing is getting built here...

Shouldn't everyone in Montreal be happy with the "infrastructure and condo booms" that are occurring there right now? Hell here in San Diego we are making a big deal out of office vacancy rates dropping, nothing is getting built here...

Hahaha! Not everyone's a member of these forums, new condo construction isn't exactly the opiate that will calm the disgruntled masses . There's a sense that the government is corrupt and that the students are having to take on this added financial burden to make up for the money that was squandered on inefficiency and their mafia buddies in that construction industry. We have the lowest tuition but also very high taxes, so it should be well funded but isn't due to a lack of competition in the political arena, as too often elections aren't determined on the merit of fiscal competency but on separatism vs. federalism and cultural concerns. This breeds mediocrity in true day to day governance and this is in part an expression of deep discontent with the provincial political situation. That, and students believe in preserving our more financially accessible model of education. They don't believe we should conform to the prices in other provinces just because, they say higher education funding should be a greater priority and money should be found through cutting out the massive number of wasteful inefficiencies in the bureaucracy.

Nice pictures. Do all 250,000 of these students pay their own tuition?

Of course not... I'm in my last year of university, if I could guesstimate I'd say about 30% of them do? Maybe I just don't hang out with the less-fortunate ones.

What it seems to boil down to is the 'severity' of the increase (% wise), plus the fact every previous government has backed away from plans to raise fees. So while the planned increase would make tuition 75% more expensive (75% = 1625$) the student unions, and generally all of Quebec's left leaners (i.e. europe-style left) are calling for a freeze or simply free education.
The gap between these two proposals is pretty large, hence the anger.

For the record, I'm against the increase in theory but I support it here and now, because the debt situation in Quebec is pretty out of control. If we want to make education we'll have to re-arrange quite a few parametres. The argument from those against the rise are that we should cut elsewhere, but for the most part 'elsewhere' are heavily unionized sectors who simply won't accept cuts.

People have totally omitted from the debate how much cash is eaten up by having to pay interest rates on the debt.

The states are better at it, albeit not by much. But Montreal is Canada's man in the protest department, or as I like to call it ''conscience gone wild''. Still both pale in comparison to Europe from what I've seen.

If these students were really concerned about access for the less fortunate, they would accept the tuition increases and be protesting demanding increased need-based grants/bursaries so that lower income students would be able to afford university.

yeah we also manage our own taxes with Quebec Revenu and also with immigration with Quebec immigration... and we also pay more than 8B$ in taxes to the federal government! But I guess you cannot think much cause you are a cowboy who live in Calgary and just think about dirty oil money!

yeah we also manage our own taxes with Quebec Revenu and also with immigration with Quebec immigration... and we also pay more than 8B$ in taxes to the federal government! But I guess you cannot think much cause you are a cowboy who live in Calgary and just think about dirty oil money!

Come on now Vaillant, I know you're a proud nationalist but those arguments are horrible.
Quebec revenu was created because PQ insisted.
Quebec Immigration was created because PQ insisted.
Both cost a ton of money.
We give x amount to federal and get xx back.
This year xx = 15billion more than x
No offense but you're the one looking like a cowboy right now.